My ESV Study Bible Finally Arrived

Today it came.  Well, sort of.  In today's mail I found a duty payable notice in the mailbox.  I wondered what it could be.  My account at Crossway still shows my ESV Study Bible as "back ordered."  So I got in the car and drove down to the post office.  I gave good ole Pierre the notice and out he came with a box from Crossway Bibles.  Woohoo!  So I thought I'd take some "unboxing" photos and make some comments along the way.  (I've seen a few sets, but so far none for the "Classic Black TruTone."

It's interesting that Canada Customs decided to charge me GST on this (5%).  I know that everything coming across the border is liable for that 5% federal tax, even if the items are duty free, but I've never actually had them asses any taxes on books I've ordered from abroad.  So this is a first.  The 5% isn't so bad, but on top of the $4.42 they also tacked on a $5 handling fee for their trouble in opening the box up.  The first thing I noted was the yellow customs tape.  I'm sure they had to open it, after all the shipper is clearly identified as Crossway Bibles and I bet Crossway is well known for smuggling dope into Canada disguised as Bibles.  Right.

Anyway, opening up the box revealed the same glossy shelf-box that all the ESV Study Bibles seem to be coming in.  Sorry Canada Post, no dope in this package.  Inside, the Bible itself was wrapped in plastic.  I'm impressed with the quality of the TruTone.  If I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to think it was leather.  It's much nicer than other TruTone covers I've seen (certainly better than those on Zondervan's Reader's Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament).  This Bible was purchased as a bit of an experiment.  I'm not usually into study Bibles, but I saw a mock-up of the ESV earlier this year and decided to order one.  My daughter has two TruTone Bibles, one from Crossway and one from the American Bible Society.  She's ten and tens to be somewhat abusive with books.  She's had one of them for about three years and the other for a year and they've held up remarkably well.  In fact, the Crossway TruTone ESV she's got was thrown in a box at the last minute as we were packing for our move here and the box it was in got jostled around a lot and then buried in the new place.  When I finally found it a couple of weeks later the Bible was crammed to one side and practically folded in half – and no worse for the wear.  I put it on a table and within 24 hours it was flat and happy.  I've always bought good quality leather Bibles, but I'm intrigued with TruTone, which I'm told is made of PVC, and wanted to know how it would hold up.  So I decided to go with the TruTone this time.  I know this Bible will get used.  As heavy as it is, I intend to carry it in my bag as often as I can with my KJV/1928BCP leather combo (which is genuine leather and holding up beautifully).  So thus begins the experiment.  You can see the photos below.  The Trutone cover is pretty flexible.  It's only slightly "floppy" but I'm not a fan of excessive floppiness.  The Bible opens nicely.  The spine stays flat.  I can open to both the first and last pages and the Bible stays open.  The only negative is the goofy little triangle others have noted.  I'm not sure what the point is and it seems likely to snag on things and get damaged or, hopefully not, ripped off – but I'm going to leave it be until such time as it become a problem.

As others have noted, the text block (which I assume to be the same in all editions) is well manufactured.  The paper is thin, but nice.  There's not much bleed through.  The type, both text and notes, is easy to read.  It's a little reminiscent of the Reformation Study Bible, but better executed.  The maps, illustrations and diagrams are spectacular if not quite a slick as they looked in the big cardboard brochures that Crossway sent me in the Spring.  In general, I have to say that it looks great.

Atheism – 'nuff said

I'm not sure where this came from, but thanks to Fr. Wayne McNamara for commenting on it via Facebook.

Zondervan's Reader's Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament

Yesterday a new book arrived and I wanted to share my comments. But I guess I need to back up first...

A couple of years ago I was looking for a used copy of Nestle-Aland to use as a backup. I found myself browsing the Greek shelves at Pilgrim Discount in Portland (now sadly out of business as of this past spring). On the shelf I found Zondervan's A Reader's Greek New Testament, which happens to have been compiled in part by a fellow Regent grad. The price was right – about $15. At the time I was really excited. You see, I like to use my Greek New Testament for devotional reading as well as study, but it's clumsy to have to have the New Testament in one hand and a reader's lexicon in the other. Finally someone decided to combine them into one volume. They removed the critical apparatus (which isn't necessary if you're just "reading") and replaced it with a reader's lexicon on the bottom of every page. Wow! Why did it take this long to publish something like this?

Here's how it works: The vocabulary taught in most modern Greek courses is designed to teach all the words used in the New Testament thirty times or more. That gives you knowledge of about 77% of the actual word occurances in the New Testament. In other words, as you read along, you'll know a bit more than three of every four words you come across. A reader's lexicon glosses the words you don't know, but instead of being arranged alphabetically like a dictionary, it's arranged in the order that you read the words. If you want to read Romans 1, you open the reader's lexicon to Roman 1 and simply follow along. As you get to each word you don't know you look over to the lexicon and there they are in the order you get to them. Since the best way to learn and maintain your Greek is to read the New Testament itself, a reader's lexicon makes it easy to do so. And of course, the more you use it, the more vocabulary you learn and the more proficient you become. So here they've done away with the separate volume and included the lexicon at the bottom of the page. Cool! (The second edition of this book includes a glossary in the back listing all the words that occur more than thirty times – just in case.)

Well, I've had Zondervan's A Reader's Greek New Testament for a couple of years now, so I was rather excited when they released the companion volume this year: A Reader's Hebrew Bible. It's the same idea, but this time it's the Hebrew Old Testament text. They make a nice pair seeing as the covers match in style and size, although one's tan and the other's brown. Having the Hebrew volume is, for me, an even greater joy than the New Testament volume. Biblical Greek has a fairly small vocabulary and is much easier to learn. Biblical Hebrew, on the other hand, has an enormous vocabulary. (Just think of your Bible and what percentage is New Testament versus Old.) Zondervan's Hebrew Bible is also nice in that it's much more ergonomic than my three pound Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and even larger copy of Koehler & Baumgartner (my lexicon of choice for reading).

Both volumes are great, but they're not perfect. In both cases they're bound in what Zondervan calls "Italian Duo-tone." That means the fake leather that's become so popular lately. I'm told that it's a derivative of PVC plastic, so it should be durable. The problem is that the "boards" under the "leather" are about the flimsiest I've ever seen. The paper's nothing to shout about either – it's the same cheap paper that also seem to be used in cheap Bibles. There's quite a bit of bleed-through, but not enough that it makes reading difficult.

The New Testament has some other shortcomings. First, the compilers weren't able to get permission to use the standard Greek text used in UBS and Nestle-Aland, so they compiled their own text based on all the variant readings of the TNIV. Really, the difference aren't that significant, but it's annoying that it's not the same as a "real" Greek New Testament. You have to remember that this is for reading not for serious study or sermon preparation.

In the case of A Reader's Hebrew Bible the layout and typeface are great, but this isn't the case for A Reader's Greek New Testament. For some reason the compilers chose an italicised typeface for the Greek text. It's hard to read, although I did eventually get used to it. Apparently there were a lot of complaints about it, so the second edition uses a different typeface that isn't italicised, but its so light that it's at least as hard to read as the original.

So should you run out and buy these? Well, in the case A Reader's Hebrew Bible I have to answer with an unqualified yes. Run out and get one. Pronto. Now. I love mine. A Reader's Greek New Testament is a bit of a different story. For the money, it's well worth it. But here's the hitch. In the last year the United Bible Societies has published a reader's edition of the UBS4 text. It's hardcover, not fake leather, it's a much larger size than the typical UBS Greek New Testament, and most importantly, it uses the standard Greek text. In my opinion you're probably better off applying the $25 you'd spend on the Zondervan edition toward the $80 price of the UBS edition. That said, the UBS edition sadly won't match your Zondervan Hebrew Bible. I keep my UBS reader's New Testament in my office at the church and the Zondervan on my desk at home.

Now I just need to figure out a way to discreetly rubber-band these two beauties together so that I can whip them out at the next Bible study and wow everybody with my Greek and Hebrew. Oh, wait...I'd never do that...really.

Finally!

Okay, well it finally happened. After eight months we finally beat the local housing market and sold our house. It meant lowering the price substantially. We didn't break even, but we're at least thankful that we aren't like so many other people right now for whom selling a home actually costs them something – sometimes a lot.

The movers are packing us up and heading out on April 17th and should be delivering all of our worldly possession to Courtenay on the 18th. Housing in the Comox Valley is in relatively short supply, so we've decided to have a home built. It won't be ready until September, so in the meantime we'll be renting a three-bedroom apartment. It'll be packed to the rafters with stuff. We're praying that we'll be able to cram 2300 square feet of stuff into 1340. Ha! It will make the new home all the nicer. We've selected a nice lot with a pond less than 100 feet out our back door. I'm told it's got fish in it and Alexandra and I saw one jump, so we may be doing some fishing. The other nice aspect of it all is that the new house will be a five minute walk to the church through the green space where said pond is situated. What a difference from my daily 70 mile slog to Lake Oswego and back!

So we're all ready. God's been dropping all the pieces in place. We've even managed to get our BC medical insurance squared away early. I'm now "socially insured" and got my new driver's license this past week. Next stop: Vancouver Island.

Don't Forget the Prayer Book!

So earlier I posted a photo of my "stack" of Bibles that I use on a daily basis. I think that because my computer screen is situated so as to look over my shoulder at the shelves containing my Prayer Book library, well, the Prayer Books have been feeling neglected. I guess you know you're an Anglican and a liturgy buff when you've got a shelf-and-a-half of Bibles next to your desk and four shelves of Prayer Books. Lest my Prayer Books feel left out, here's a post in honour of them. There's no way to put them all in one stack -- I'd feel as though I were trying to build my own Tower of Babel and I'm sure it would topple over and injure someone -- so I've narrowed the selection to a representative 25% or so and arranged them in three stacks.


The Left Stack (from bottom to top)


• The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, edited by John Henry Blunt (1899) - A VERY large annotated edition of the 1662 Prayer Book. A bit Anglo-Catholic for my taste, but an immensely helpful and informative reference book.
• The Elizabethan Prayer Book, edited by John Booty (1559/2005) - A beautiful modern reprint of the 1559 Book of Common Prayer.
• The Liturgy of Comprehension 1689, edited by Timothy Fawcett (1689/1973) - A modern reprint of the Prayer Book revision of 1689. It was a joint venture between Churchmen and Puritans that ultimately failed and was never approved by either Convocation or Parliament.
• The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, by Massey Shepherd (1950) - A 1928 American Prayer Book with thorough commentary included. Not as good as Blunt's, but more up-to-date. I'd like to have this rebound one of these days...
• The Book of Common Prayer 1928 (ECUSA) - This is the nice genuine leather Oxford edition that seems to come and go out of print every few years. I bought this new in 2002, but never really use it because I prefer my editions combined with the Bible or the 1940 Hymnal.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1918 (Canada) - This is a beautiful Prayer Book, or was when it was new sometime in the 1930's. It's genuine leather with marbled end papers and art gilt pages -- and it's full-size.
• The Cathedral Prayer Book (C of E, ca. 1900) - Another beautiful BCP that is entirely set to music and bound in high quality leather with gilt pages. This has seen a century of nearly constant use and is still holding up.
• The Scottish Prayer Book 1929 - I'd like to find a leather copy sometime, but even hardcovers like this are rare.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1928 & The Hymnal 1940 - I use this a lot. This is the "leatherette" that Seabury always used instead of real leather. Mine was printed in 1953 and shows it.
• The First & Second Prayer Books of Edward VI (1910) - I should really replace this with a nicer edition. This is an old hardcover Everyman reprint of both the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1928 (ECUSA) - This is an original Oxford small-size leather copy of the 1929 edition, before the format was changed and the lectionary violated by liberals in 1943.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1662 (CofE) - A very nice hardcover and leather-like copy from Oxford, circa 1996.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1785 (ECUSA) - A very nicely preserved 1820's leather copy of ECUSA's original BCP. Printed by The New York Bible and Common Prayer Book Society. My dad rescued this out a dumpster at a Lutheran Church in Palm Springs.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1785 (ECUSA) - Another well-preserved copy of the 1785 BCP. This one's from 1886 and includes the "recently" revised orders for Morning and Evening Prayer.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1892 (ECUSA) - A beautiful padded leather Prayer Book from 1893. It has a matching hymnal as well and the covers lock together. Rescued from the same Lutheran dumpster.

The Centre Stack (from bottom to top)

• The Book of Common Prayer 2005 (REC) - The current edition of my own jurisdiction's Prayer Book -- a combination of the 1662 and 1928 Prayer Books with a smattering of our own updates and innovations. The printing is really nice and on thick paper, but it's sadly only available in hardcover and bonded leather. I plan on having this rebound when it's worn out.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1928 & King James Bible with Apocrypha - This is my beloved and I reviewed it in the previous post.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1926 (Ireland) - This is a smallish hardcover edition from about 1930. I bought it as "old stock" from a bookstore in Ireland. It's pristine and is actually, believe it or not, brand new and never used. I love the two-column format of most of the book.
• A Book of Common Prayer 1954 (South Africa) - Other than Blunt's annotated BCP, this was the hardest to find in my collection. This is an Oxford hardcover edition of the old South African alternative service book that came from the cathedral in Grahamstown. Well used but holding up. At some point someone did some wonderful and very tedious repair work to this volume.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1959 (Canada) - This was the "first" draft of the current Canadian BCP that survived only three years of use -- no wonder my copy is pristine.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1962 (Canada) - This is the current BCP in Canada, although its use is fairly rare. I'd like to find a leather copy, but those are even harder to find than old South African Prayer Books. From the Anglican Book Centre logo on the title page I know this copy is pre-1980's.
• The Teacher's Prayer Book - This is a neat little hardcover with lots of Art Nouveau gilt lettering and decorations. This is less thorough than Blunt or Shepherd, but a good annotated 1662 Prayer Book. My copy is from 1920. Printed by Eyre & Spottiswoode.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1892 (REC) - This is a 1984 hardcover reprint of the REC's 1892 Prayer Book, which was still used in Canada until the current round of revision began in the 1990's.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1932 (REC) - This is a nice hardcover 1987 reprint of the prayer book used by the REC in the United States until the 1990's.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1874 (REC) - I'm guessing this is the rarest BCP in my collection. This is the original Prayer Book of the REC -- essentially a slightly tweaked version of the Prayer Book that Bp. William White proposed to PECUSA in 1785. This is an edition published for the RE parishes in Canada and therefore tweaked a bit more in a handful of places to include prayers for the monarch.

The Right Stack (from bottom to top)


• The Book of Alternative Services 1985 (Canada) - This doesn't really qualify as Common Prayer, but it's the book used by most Anglicans in Canada. This is sort of the already liberal American 1979 BCP on liberal steroids.
• A New Zealand Prayer Book 1989 - Probably the most liberal Prayer Book in the Communion. This is a complete departure from the Common Prayer tradition that includes a bunch of syncretistic pseudo-Christian and Native/Maori cra...um...garbage. Liberal theology aside, if you can find an original New Zealand printing like this, instead of the cheapo American eidtions, the printing is bi-colour and very nice -- a beautiful book.
• The Book of Common Prayer 2004 (Ireland) - This is one of the most beautifully printed hardcover Prayer Books I've seen. The cover is a beautiful green, leather-like, and embossed with a gilt celtic cross and title. The interior is printed in both red and black text. While including more liberal modern services, much of the old 1926 BCP is still included -- a bit theologically confusing, however.
• A Prayer Book for Australia 1995 - This is the current Prayer Book in Australia and is a comparatively conservative alternative to the 1662 BCP. Printed by Broughton. The salespeople there were awesome when I ordered this by email and received it less than a week later after paying for standard surface mail (e.g., slow boat from Australia).
• Prayer Book of the Church of England in South Africa 1992 - This is a paperback edition of the CESA's current modern language alternative service book. It's basically all taken from the 1978 Australian book, but includes an interesting modern language version of the 39 Articles of Religion.
• An Anglican Prayer Book 1989 (South Africa) - This is the current modern-language alternative services book for the more liberal Church Province of South Africa. They only seem to print a low-end pseudo-buckram bound edition by Collins.
• The Alternative Service Book 1980 (CofE) - This is the hardcover pew edition of the now-defunct ASB from England. Printed by Hodder and Stoughton.
• An English Prayer Book 1994 - Oxford prints a very nicely bound hardcover copy of J.I. Packer's modern-language translation of the 1662 Prayer Book. Copyright is held by the Church Society. This was supposed to be the Evangelicals' contribution to prayer book revision, but it didn't get very far...
• An Australian Prayer Book 1978 - This is a conservative modern-language update of the 1662 Prayer Book. It's been popular in conservative Anglican churches in many other countries outside Australia and was even authorised for use in the REC. It's filled with neat illustrations of native Australian flora.
• The Book of Common Worship 1962 (The Church of South India) - This is basically the traditional BCP adapted for an ecumenical united church. Mine's a hardcover edition printed by Oxford.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1979 (ECUSA) - Whatever the title may be, this is not Common Prayer. This is the liberal modern-language service book currently in use in ECUSA wherever even more liberal trial-use liturgies aren't being used.
• The Book of Common Prayer 1984 (Wales) - This is the the fairly conservative Prayer Book of The Church in Wales. It uses traditional language with texts from the RSV. This is a hardcover copy of "Volume 1". The Welsh BCP is a bit confusing in that there are multiple volumes. I believe "Volume 2" is all in the Welsh language.

And speaking of reading the Bible...

I can't post about the need to read through the Bible without also posting my thoughts on what Bible to read all the way through.  And as seems to be the fashion in the Bible-reading blogosphere these days, I've included a photo of my "Stack" – the Bibles that sit on my desk and get used on a daily basis as part of my daily Bible reading and study.  Granted, not all of them are technically Bibles.  I'm an Anglican and I find it impossible to divorce Bible reading and study from liturgy, and so you'll also see that my "Stack" contains a Prayer Book and the Divine Office too.

From top to bottom:

1) My beloved 1928BCP/KJV "Combo."  The Prayer Book Society printed these years ago and I didn't get one.  When they handed over the rights to the Anglican Catholic Church, I forked over the major dough for one of the new leather copies...then waited, and waited, and waited...for over a year.  But it was worth the wait.  The printing isn't the best ever and the leather cover is more durable and functional than beautiful, but this is my favourite book of the thousands in my library.  It goes with me everywhere and gets used every single day.  This is my "reading" Bible and my personal use BCP.  One big unexpected plus I found with this Bible is that it's a photographic reprint of the standard Oxford edition, so the pages exactly match my wide-margin primary study Bible (#5).

2) The Anglican Breviary was introduced to me by a good friend who also happens to be a priest.  It's essentially a translation into Cranmerian English of the Roman Breviary or Divine Office as it existed in 1911.  Calling it "Anglican" is a bit misleading as it's only Anglican in that it uses the collects from the BCP and the Coverdale Psalter and follows more or less the traditional BCP calendar – the rest is Roman.  This is the collected prayer tradition of Western Christendom.  It continued to evolve in the Roman Church beyond the time of the Reformation and thus I don't always agree with it's doctrine or the "saints" it commemorates, but neither is it something a Protestant can or ought to ignore.  I wish I had the time to pray all eight offices every day, but being in bivocational ministry and having a family, that's just not happening anytime soon.  I generally use the Breviary to supplement Morning and Evening Prayer from the 1928 BCP.  This edition was printed privately by a California attorney and Anglo-Catholic.  The printing is in both red and black and is absolutely beautiful – sometimes I can't help but sit and turn the pages and admire how classy it is.  The cover is some kind of "leatherette" and very stiff.  It looks great, but keeps the book from lying open except in the very middle, and is only in such good condition because this book rarely leaves my desk.

3) The Greek New Testament (4th edition, UBS Text) was a gift that the Canadian Bible Society gave to all seminary students taking Greek.  Somehow I've maintained this in reasonably good condition.  They didn't give away the spendy editions with "flex" or leather covers.  I don't generally do my daily Bible reading in Greek – I reserve that for more serious in-depth study and sermon prep.  One of these days I'd like to replace this with one of Hendrickson's wide-margin GNT's so that I can write notes next to the text.

4) The Oxford Revised Standard Version Bible (with the Apocrypha) is my modern-language Bible and the one that I've usually preached from.  I like using the King James personally, but have found that I need to preach from a modern text.  The RSV has it's problems, but overall it's a pretty good translation into modern, formal English and the fact that it still uses "Thee" and "Thou" in reference to God means it fits in well with the liturgy.  This is a mid-range quality leather copy that is no longer available.  Ever since the New Revised Standard Version (yuck!) came out the RSV has been disappearing, and I think this edition was only printed to celebrate the RSV's fiftieth anniversary.  The English Standard Version is a conservative revision of the RSV text and I expect to be switching to the ESV in my new parish, but they really need to release an Anglican edition that uses Thee/Thou and includes the Apocrypha!

5) I don't generally like "study Bibles" because the notes, if and when they're doctrinally sound, usually tell me things I already know and tend to be absent when I really do have a question about a passage.  My solution has been to make my own.  Number 5 is Oxford's Wide-margin King James Reference Bible in calfskin or as I sometimes call it: The Holy Bible: Ten Pound Version.  This is the mammoth of Bible's and is only smaller than Ye Olde Humongous Family Bible.  I went back and forth between Oxford's edition and the equivalent printed by Cambridge (the Crème de la Crème of Bible publishers).  Cambridge's includes a dictionary and concordance, but I like Oxford's thicker paper and stiffer cover – not to mention that the two high-end Cambridge Bibles I've owned fell apart within two years.  I love this Bible because I can write all sorts of notes, references, glosses, alternate translations, and definitions in all four directions around the text.  As another blogger puts it, "The wide-margin Bible is the thinking man's study Bible."  I think he's right.  If you're going to do serious Bible study a wide-margin Bible is a must-have.

6) Finally, at the bottom of the stack, but the most worn off all, is my Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.  I bought the smaller version of the same Hebrew Bible my first year in seminary and knew that it would by my favourite of all.  If you know me, you know that I'm just an Old Testament lovin' guy.  (Yes, my Sephardic roots are beginning to show.)  As much as I love the New Covenant by which I've been redeemed in Christ Jesus, I love the OT too.  Fact is, you can't really understand the New until you've really studied the Old.  You can never appreciate the grace that mercifully saves you until you first understand the righteous Law by which we all stand condemned.  I loved studying the Old Testament and the only way to really do so is in Hebrew.  My old cheapo (relatively speaking) student edition wore out years ago and was too small anyway, so I replaced it with the full-size (with a matching price tag) edition and love it.  Like my GNT, this is part of all serious Bible study.  If you're planning to purchase a copy, do yourself a favour and do what I did: buy the full-size edition.  Reading tiny Hebrew script is just plain hard on the eyes.  The German Bible Society cover is durable, but not very attractive.  If or when I someday wear it out, I plan to send this off to have it rebound in leather.

Sometimes I feel like the odd man out.  I use the King James for personal study and have always preached from the now defunct RSV.  A few months ago I visited a Bible study group when I was out of town.  There was a broad age range, but at 35 I was the youngest.  Interestingly only two of us were using the King James – the other was the oldest member of the group, who was in her 90's.  I've used other translations.  When I was learning to read my grandparents gave me a Good News Bible, which really did help at a time when I wasn't much of a reader.  I used the New International Version and New King James at various times, but eventually I drifted to the King James.  I'm certainly not of the "King James Only" school of thought.  I simply appreciate the language and the fact that for centuries this was the standard for the English speaking world.  For that reason I like the Revised Standard Version, even with it's shortcomings.  It maintains much of the formal flavour of the King James.  The NASB is written in language no one speaks.  Ditto for the NKJV.  And the NIV...well...it's the NIV.  I'd lost all hope for a really good modern translation until the English Standard Version was released a few years ago.  I'm very impressed with it, and as I said above, it will probably become my main preaching text as I move into a parish that uses modern-language liturgy.

Whatever happened to the Bible in a year?

I found myself pondering this question again when January first rolled around last week. It comes up every year – either with the beginning of Advent or alternatively with the beginning of the new civil year. You see, a number of years ago I got tired of using the Daily Office lectionary from the 1928 BCP as the basis for my daily Scripture readings and decided to try something different each year.

The fact is that every Christian – and even more so every clergyman – ought to be reading through all of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, at least once every year. We all make excuses and we all have to deal with major demands on our time, but if our time here on earth has been graciously given to us in preparation for a life of worship in heaven, shouldn't we be making the study of God's Holy Word a major priority? And really, when it comes down to it, it's not that hard. It works out to about four chapters a day, and just about anyone can manage that.

My parents and my Sunday school teachers THANKFULLY beat the need for daily Bible reading and study into my head from a young age. When I was young my grandparents gave me a Today's English Version and my mom would make up a monthly chart of daily readings and tack it to the wall near the head of my bed. By the time I was at university I had formed the habit of doing the best I could to read the entire Bible through each year. I was only vaguely aware of the Daily Office at that point and the Lectionary was only a confusing chart in the front of the BCP. But along came The One Year Bible, a copy of which was given to me in those years. It moves through the Bible from beginning to end with selections each day from the Old Testament, the New, a Psalm, and few verses from Proverbs. Then came the one I really liked: The Daily Bible. This was even better, because it took one through all of the Bible, but did so chronologically. Almost every year I made it through the Bible from page 1 to page 1957 (yes I used the same Bible for so many years and was so anxious by December to get to that last page, that I still remember the page number where Revelation 22 ended). Even though I wasn't using the Daily Office, I value those years of consistent Bible reading and study.

Eventually I learned how the Daily Office and its accompanying lectionary works and started using the BCP daily. The problem is that the revised lectionary of 1945 found in most 1928 BCP's doesn't take one through ALL of the Bible in a year -- it covers most of the Bible, but as I gradually learned, it's selective (and not just because it attempts to follow the Church Year), it's somewhat antinomian, and it begins to show the liberal bias that the Episcopal Church had by then already swallowed whole. I don't mind using such a lectionary every once in a while, but it's not good for a steady annual diet -- I found it shortchanged me in what it left out. Often I would read the missing portions of Scripture that fell between the specified lessons, but this still doesn't get one reading the WHOLE Bible.

So a few years ago I decided to seek out other options by perusing the other Prayer Books in my collection and sampling their lectionaries. What I basically found is this: up through the various revisions of the 1920's most of them follow the same pattern. Like Cranmer's original, they aren't tied to the Church year. They move through the Bible systematically and most of them, especially the older ones, cover every single verse during the year. (In fact, the oldest covers the Old Testament once in the year and the New Testament TWICE.) The original 1928 American lectionary falls into this category, as do the revised 1662 English lectionary, the Canadian 1918, the English 1928, the Irish 1926, and the Scottish 1929. By 1945 the Episcopal Church had lost the high view of Scripture it once had. Sadly the Lectionary of my own church, the REC, is much more like the ECUSA 1945 than it is the older ones. The Canadian 1962 is even worse and then everything took a dive off a cliff from that point on.

I've enjoyed several years using in turn Cranmer's original lectionary from the 1549, the revised English lectionary of 1871, the 1928 American lectionary, and my favourite: the 1918 Canadian lectionary. I returned to the 1945 in 2006 just to see what the difference was and I was jarred by how much it left out. I guess that experience drove me back to what I hadn't used in years: The One Year Bible. I used it's plan for all of 2007 with a few modifications. I like using the Coverdale Psalter as arranged in The Anglican Breviary, which covers all 150 psalms each week, so I used that instead. This year I'm getting a late (post-Christmas) start with the 1918 Canadian lectionary.

So this is simply the long way of stressing the need for each of us to be faithful to our calling to read the Word and to read it daily – and to regularly read it all. I've found it to be true in my own life that Christian growth stagnates, perhaps even retreats, when I'm not reading and studying the divine rulebook and manual. I've certainly seen it in others. I've known some very knowledgeable Christians whom you'd never know were Christians except for the depth of their theological booklearning. As I've come to know them the common denominator is a lack of consistent and daily Scripture study and prayer.

I urge you as the new (civil) year begins, to find a way to read the Bible through this year and then to make it an annual habit. Find a pre-1945 American BCP or some other old edition, download one of those old lectionaries from the internet, or support your local Christian bookstore and pick up a One Year Bible or Daily Bible and put it to use.

A long overdue update...

Well, it's been a while since I've updated here -- almost four months to be exact.  If I'm this busy now, I'm wondering how much time I'll have to post to this blog when I eventually get going in full-time ministry!

And yes, that means we still haven't moved.  Both my current employer and the church in Courtenay have been gracious in working with us as we await God's perfect timing for this move.  Even the builder of our new house in Courtenay has been amazingly flexible, moving our close date to the end of January.  It's been frustrating, but we know that God is working in all this and has a plan.  We've been seeing little bits and pieces unfold as time has gone on and it's confirmed that he knows what he's doing.  We had originally planned to be moved by the end of the summer and were looking at real estate online, thinking we had found several options.  When we went up to look at those options in September we found that they would never have worked and ended up settling on new construction.  We were then glad that our home here hadn't sold yet as the new house wasn't scheduled to be completely until mid-December.  So we revised the plan to arrive in Courtenay sometime this month.  Our house still didn't sell and we're still here.  Then two weeks ago Veronica ended up in hospital -- something that would not have been covered by the temporary medical insurance we would have been relying on had we moved in December.  Again God knows best.  We continue to trust in him and in his timing.

As I said, Veronica was in hospital two weeks ago.  She was about 23 weeks pregnant and noticed over several days that the baby wasn't not moving as much as usual and then stopped moving altogether Friday, November 30th.  Her doctor sent her to the maternity ward Saturday morning so that she could be connected to a monitor and the baby checked.  We did that, and after several ultrasounds they were able to verify that the baby's heart had stopped beating.  Due to the baby's positioning, they had to deliver her via caesarian section, which was done late Saturday night.

Isabella Sabina Klock weighed in at 10 1/2 oz. and was 10 3/4" long.  The staff at Southwest Washington Medical Centre were wonderful.  We were blessed with a great staff of nurses, many of whom were fellow believers.  They were able to grieve with us, but more importantly to share with us in the hope of our own resurrection that will one day reunite us with our daughter who is already enjoying the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Veronica spent four days in hospital and is recovering well.  Our families have been very helpful and supportive.  We've also been blessed with an abundance of godly love and support from the people of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Portland, where we've made our temporary church home since August.

We want to thank you all for your love and prayers.

Simpsonize Yourself!

Okay so this isn't even remotely theological andhas nothing to do with Christian living or even Anglicanism, but I couldn't resist sharing this little piece of fun. Thanks to our friends at Burger King and The Simpsons Movie, you can now "Simpsonize" yourself. Here's the whole Klock family. I tried to Simpsonize Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker, but without surplices and Canterbury caps as clothing options it didn't really work :-(

Sorry it's been a while...Here's why

Many apologies are in order for my having neglected the blog for so long. I seem to have just started and then left it languishing, but I'm not without excuses and both excuses constitute some significant news for me, my wife, my daughter, and, well...

Our New Baby

We were as surprised as you probably are at the news we received about a month ago. Veronica is about two months along and just had her first ultrasound done. Of course, we don't know yet if the baby's a boy or girl, but the ultrasound does show that it's got a head, two arms, two legs, and...erm...a tail, which we're told is quite normal at this phase of development. These ultrasounds have never made much sense to me, but I'll trust the doctor that you can see all six of those body parts in the image. Baby Klock is due sometime in the Spring of 2008 -- probably late March or early April. Although unexpected for me and Veronica, we're excited about the news, as is Alexandra who is not so surprised seeing as this is in answer to her long-time prayer for a little brother or sister. It appears that this child will be another Canadian "anchor baby" for us, as in other news...

We're moving back to Canada

Yes, as soon as we're able we'll be packing up and heading back North. In June we made a visit to Courtenay, British Columbia so that I could candidate at Living Word Reformed Episcopal Church and while we were there I accepted the position of rector of the parish. Living Word is about a year old than Christ Church here in Portland, but has been growing fairly rapidly and now has somewhere around sixty people typically. When we visited there were over seventy present for the worship service. This transition has been on the table a long time. I was first contacted about this position almost two years ago and, most recently, late this past January. In fact the last post I made on this blog was on the morning that the Bishop of Western Canada was visiting Christ Church to check on me.

We've been in the US for over nine years and will be heading back to Canada as soon as we can get our house sold. The market is slow, but we've seen some activity and the feedback from the realtors who have viewed the house has been very good. Our agent is hopeful that we should have some offers within the month. In the meantime we certainly appreciate your prayers for a quick sale and hassle-free move. We're looking forward to life in the Comox Valley, which is on the east coast of Vancouver Island about 250km northwest of Victoria. We'll only be a day's car and ferry trip from my family here in Vancouver, Washington and about the same distance from Veronica's family in Kelowna, B.C.